...the general reaction of Americans to Slavic accents has so far been really defeating. I've had problems in the HoN world where people would turn in game VOIP off the second I oppened my mouth with "STFU russian, learn human language."

Lujo, as an American, let me tell you: the problem is with us, not with you. Try to ignore Americans such as those, if at all possible. After all, how much weight can you give the scorn of a populace whose "native" tongue is a bastardized, aesthetically hideous travesty of English? .....And for whom any accent from east of Poland is "Russian"? Believe me, any genuine accent has gotta be better than my countrymen's poor excuse for a dialect.

Lujo wrote:Question for Blovski - the healthmonster strat, how exactly does it fare on endurance runs? Does it run out of steam easily?

I used to do sucessfull but crashy TT paladin runs of Gaan'Telet, I went through old unnerfed AA-s whining but sucessful. What ussualy gives the healthmonster a hard time?

No clue - it happily trampled NC and DI (I'll try DL at some point, I think it could probably handle that with some luck on the glyph front) but I guess vicious GT is a completely different order of rough. The main thing is you need to keep up level-up momentum to heal (and it's 20 casts to fill up fire heart, so while that's a big plus as you stack up health (especially with getindare, endiswal or byceps), if you're going for 50%ish restore you still won't use it more than once every few enemies). Given that being a GG Paladin is central (I suppose you could do it as another class, but you'd have to get out of GG and thus lose protection) to it... additionally, being a GG strat, at a certain point your limiting factor is going to be inventory space. Might get some mileage out of the overheal pact, but I don't know.

All in all, it's got a ton of resources left over for your regular top-end hard and vicious dungeons *but* since it relies on essentially massive-ridiculous health spiking rather than general bonuses *and* clamps down on both inventory space and god worship, it's probably not going to slay the Unity bug.

...the general reaction of Americans to Slavic accents has so far been really defeating. I've had problems in the HoN world where people would turn in game VOIP off the second I oppened my mouth with "STFU russian, learn human language."

Lujo, as an American, let me tell you: the problem is with us, not with you. Try to ignore Americans such as those, if at all possible. After all, how much weight can you give the scorn of a populace whose "native" tongue is a bastardized, aesthetically hideous travesty of English? .....And for whom any accent from east of Poland is "Russian"? Believe me, any genuine accent has gotta be better than my countrymen's poor excuse for a dialect.

Don't be too hard on yourself, most Americans I met in real life were ok - although a bit surprised that plenty of people in East Europe led a life rather simmilar to the one outside of American big cities. For better or for worse. It's amazing how a whole lot of Bruce Springsteen songs really resound over here, too.

And HoN community is a really sorry collection of creatures, whatever county they are from. The Europeans are mostly spoiled Scandinavian and German kids, and the average American is painfully ignorant. Actual Russians are about as bad, which is why everybody noticably Slavic has a hard time.

I'll be doing the video though, it won't be the most exciting one, but I hope I get to show a nice dismatling of a very special dungeon. I'll do it on a sunny day, I noticed I tend to slip into "Ivan the Terrible" when I'm under the weather more

Lujo wrote:Question for Blovski - the healthmonster strat, how exactly does it fare on endurance runs? Does it run out of steam easily?

I used to do sucessfull but crashy TT paladin runs of Gaan'Telet, I went through old unnerfed AA-s whining but sucessful. What ussualy gives the healthmonster a hard time?

No clue - it happily trampled NC and DI (I'll try DL at some point, I think it could probably handle that with some luck on the glyph front) but I guess vicious GT is a completely different order of rough. The main thing is you need to keep up level-up momentum to heal (and it's 20 casts to fill up fire heart, so while that's a big plus as you stack up health (especially with getindare, endiswal or byceps), if you're going for 50%ish restore you still won't use it more than once every few enemies). Given that being a GG Paladin is central (I suppose you could do it as another class, but you'd have to get out of GG and thus lose protection) to it... additionally, being a GG strat, at a certain point your limiting factor is going to be inventory space. Might get some mileage out of the overheal pact, but I don't know.

All in all, it's got a ton of resources left over for your regular top-end hard and vicious dungeons *but* since it relies on essentially massive-ridiculous health spiking rather than general bonuses *and* clamps down on both inventory space and god worship, it's probably not going to slay the Unity bug.

Hmmm, since they removed the AA floor there is no pactmaker to make use of the overheal... I had monstrous health with dvarven Bloodmages, but I seemed to gobble up my bloodpools much too fast. If it revolves around level-up and doesn't involve the goblin, then you are right. It probably won't work. I'll give it a whirl in other dungeons though, I always wanted to see a big health strat that worked.

Tried the healthmonster on DL - did not work out too well. I think poison and decent items are both necessities for that, and unless the damage protections are changed it's going to stay a bad place for non-fireballers.

Nandrew wrote:This dungeon is the ridiculous head-desk obstacle for players who simply refuse to be defeated by anything else -- so any talk of "fairness" or "balance" is unfortunately going to be ignored as a rule of thumb. The percentage of the player base who realistically need this as a challenge to tackle is going to be incredibly small.

I'm more inclined to respond to problems that affect Hard GT, since that dungeon is an official part of gameplay progression. And even that one hasn't hit our priority lists just yet.

Huh. I honestly had no idea that Vicious Gaan'Telet was a bonus mission. Between the quest (and its delicious reward) and the mission-end screen with room for all the medals/classes, I really thought that *this* was the endgame, and my failure to even beat it once was a sign of weakness.

Nandrew wrote:This dungeon is the ridiculous head-desk obstacle for players who simply refuse to be defeated by anything else -- so any talk of "fairness" or "balance" is unfortunately going to be ignored as a rule of thumb. The percentage of the player base who realistically need this as a challenge to tackle is going to be incredibly small.

I'm more inclined to respond to problems that affect Hard GT, since that dungeon is an official part of gameplay progression. And even that one hasn't hit our priority lists just yet.

Huh. I honestly had no idea that Vicious Gaan'Telet was a bonus mission. Between the quest (and its delicious reward) and the mission-end screen with room for all the medals/classes, I really thought that *this* was the endgame, and my failure to even beat it once was a sign of weakness.

I'd rather call it a sign of sanity. I'm sort of hoping that when QCF becones a big corp off of pay for download installments off this damned drug we call a game, they hire the playtesters to do all this for money.

But yes, what you mention is a bit of misdirection, Gaan'Telet was never ment to be beaten. Last time Subanark did it, I took the essence of the approach that could beat it and sort of layed waste to the entire game. Part of it was because you could apply readily acessible stuff to any character to turn him into a monster, which is not really the case with the current run, as "building" a Bloodmage in all his functionality is quite impossible. And it sort of ends up revolving around using 10+ floors worth of stuff to regen fight the boss with Martyr Wraps, which is kind of only applicable in Gaan'Telet.

And it also works best if you build him into a HALPMEH resist fighter which is even in theroy most likely the most powerfull thing the game can produce, plus he gets to suck booldpools this time around, and has a physical "burning" effect that doesn't ever go away.

Ok, i died to a missclick on the latest run, but what I had going would've leveled the boss, even if he still had mana burn. Whole new thing here, unfortunatly with limited application elsewhere (apart from maybe Naga City, haven't been there a while).

So, all the reresach and text walling and spam revealed to me somethign which was allready known, but I've forgotten. Except not I know why it works the way it works in more ways than one.

Dragonshield Goblin Crusader %resist stacker. And 'Ole Busted Drac, who is busted. Whish I had a screenshot.

Anyway, the crusader is an excellent Regen fighter material, provided you can "build him into it". His abilities go about it in a back-to-front fashion, though, and what seems to be his "main" ability is misleading in this regard. He starts out with immunity to poison, mana burn and curse (the main regen fighting plagues), and also provides an extra altar for more "+res" boon scumming. It works in Gaan'Telet, except you can't choose which altar spawns (I wonder why I never tried if the "spawn an extra altar" stacks with Crusader or even works in Gaan'Telet.

I took a Gobbo so I can DING! whenever I want on top of my ridiculous resistances, and save popcorn for TT and Taurog piety farming. Drac needs no piety farming other than a level of sanguine (ended up with so much even after I took the +15res boon, I resorted to stacking sanguine not to waste). Also, the immunity from everything sort of makes most of the challenges in Gaan'Telet lose their bite, and removes the only qualm with Patches. Momentum was ok for getting bigger hits in on stuff while I farm piety, although the inconsistent damage coupled with GETINDARE use got me killed in the end on the last enemy before Horatio.

Gods were TT (money stuff and Poison), desecration of topside EM altar and 1 Tribute then Taurog (a bit deeper, I got through at least 3-4 floors in TT), took only the armor, got some more piety then went then Drac. Patches + Dragonshield + boons had me at 56% resists (could've been more), and I also had platemail. 15% Sanguine on top of it, and Poison. Yeeeeeah.

Was fun. Crusader's probably ok all in all, this is Gaan'Telet shannenigans, with a bit of "use it before they adress it" sillyness with drac, allthough... If "extra altar prep" stacks with him to give you 5 altars, and you have acess to the Dragonshield (or even the CO +8% charm), and don't mind dumping money into a run, he's probably the easiest %res based regen fighter to build from scratch.

EDIT: Especially if HALPMEH use could be worked into the routine (join drac first, drink up bloodpools, grab resists, convert out, bit iffy outside of endurance runs). If I had halpmeh my damage output would be silly, this way, most of my mana went towards GETINDARE spiking. Oh, well...

EDIT: It can, at least in Gaan'Telet - instead of stacking sanguine, I would've simply joined Mysterea at that point and HALME'D up a refreshment, then piety to convert back to Drac after I'm done with mana all togather...

Also, if you're doing Gaan'Telet, bring/fing the alchemist scroll. And worship Glitterfinger and Packmaster, stack %res and go Drac in the end. Martyr Wraps and Whurlagrble make a Bloodsell + %res endgame silly.

No poison, no HALPMEH (hell, no potions except whoopaz at Horatio). 190 HP with 10 sanguine and all the bloodpools in Gaan'Telet... I had a goblin ready to DING! me topside, but Drac was 2 floors away from Horatio, ended up not needing it. Wow.